This application is an improvement over my now abandoned patent application, Ser. No. 294,957, filed Aug. 21, 1981, entitled "WIND POWERED SOLAR GRAIN DRYING APPARATUS".
In order to remove moisture from grains and cereals, it is necessary to raise the temperature of the kernals, to drive the moisture to the surface, where it can escape into the atmosphere. To this end, most prior art grain drying bins have been supplied with a heat source and forced ventilation means, both of which consume tremendous amounts of power, in the form of fuel and/or electricity.
Since the cost of fuel and electricity has been rapidly escalating in the past, and should continue to do so in the foreseeable future, people have been looking for alternative energy sources to utilize in the grain drying process. Examples of such alternate energy source devices may be seen in U.S Pat. Nos. 2,045,800; 4,207,684 and 4,077,143.
Unfortunately, even these devices consume energy to circulate air and/or to tumble the grain within the bin, so that the drying process takes place uniformly within the bin, and also to insure that the presence of mold is inhibited or eliminated.
In addition, other prior art patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,913,239 and 3,357,110, which have employed a vertical conveyor which deposits the grain onto a conical skirt member, to distribute the elevated grain around the periphery of the bin, have been patently deficient in preventing the grain from accummulating unevenly around the bin periphery, except under ideal conditions, and in instances wherein the conveyor outlet is positioned so that the center of the stream of grain exactly coincides with the apex of the conical skirt.
Up until the present time no one has devised a grain drying apparatus which relies solely on naturally available and virtually inexhaustable power supplies, i.e.--the sun and wind. The present invention, however, recognizes these power sources, and incorporates them into a very efficient grain drying apparatus.
In addition, this invention also provides a fool proof, wind powered apparatus, for insuring that the grain will be uniformly distributed around the periphery of the grain bin interior.